Attorney: Replacing Flora won't affect lawsuit against county

Former Luzerne County Chief Public Defender Al Flora was replaced at Tuesday's Luzerne County Council meeting. The trial over funding to the public defender's office is scheduled to begin on June 24.

WILKES-BARRE - The decision to replace Al Flora Jr. as Luzerne County chief public defender will not affect the litigation over funding for the public defender's office, an attorney for the plaintiffs said Wednesday.

Witold Walczak, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, expects the trial to begin, as scheduled, on June 24. County council unanimously confirmed Steven M. Greenwald as chief public defender on Tuesday.

"It's a shame," Walczak said, calling the decision "short-sighted."

Flora and three other plaintiffs, who were initially denied legal representation in criminal cases, sued the county a year ago, claiming the public defender's office needed more county funding to meet its constitutional mandate to provide legal counsel to indigent defendants.

The decision to replace Flora as chief public defender should not affect Flora's standing as a plaintiff because he "is still an employee with that office," Walczak said.

Greenwald will work full-time as chief at $90,000 a year and could start working as chief April 29. Flora has been working part-time as chief at $52,178 a year, and the county budget would allow Flora to remain as an assistant public defender at the same annual salary.

This year's budget allocates $2.7 million for the public defender's office, which handles about 85 percent of the adult criminal cases in the county. The office was assigned to represent 3,318 clients last year, and as of March 31, the office had accepted 1,087 new cases, Flora noted a report submitted to county council this week.

The average new caseload per full-time staff attorney was 306.48, Flora said. The office in recent years "has lost a considerable number of attorneys due to the high caseload volumes," Flora said.

"Most recently, Assistant Public Defender Ed Olexa resigned due to high caseloads preventing him from fulfilling his ethical responsibilities," Flora wrote in his report.

During a court hearing in May 2012, Jack Dean, the county's attorney in the case, questioned Flora about public defenders who didn't take files home, worked on private cases on county time, missed appellate filing deadlines and didn't know how to file briefs. Flora responded that inadequate funding resulted in poor training.

Flora reviewed his annual report with council members at Tuesday's meeting. Six applicants, including Flora, applied to be the full-time chief public defender, and county Manager Robert Lawton nominated Greenwald, an assistant public defender for the county since 1994.

mbuffer@citizensvoice.com, 570-821-2073

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